XPS Owners Rejoice!!

[dave_ca]

This is an older thread, but I wanted to chime in that Lestat's method works. I have the 9300 running at 3.0hz, a healthy 500mhz increase. I have the generic Hyundai Ram (667 stuff) running at 800mhz- quite stable. Thanks for the information Lestat.

[drfubar]

Letstat: In your pics, CPUZ shows that your fsb:dram ratio is 1:1.

In my xps 420 q6600 G0 my ratio is 2:3 making my ram speed go way too high when using setfsb.

How did you change the ratio?

[drfubar]

Anyone else that might be able to answer?

[LiquidReactor]

Anyone else that might be able to answer?

Wondering about the same thing. Trying out this softmod on my dell xps420 at work and the 2:3 fsb/mem ratio is definitely limiting my oc. So far managed to get it to sub 2.9 just through setfsb, but bsods whenever I try for 330 fsb. Have not been able to test prime95 stability at those speeds yet.

[ziddey]

get spdtool and program down your ram from 400 to something else like maybe 266 or 333 (1:1 or 4:5)

make sure to backup the original spd

[LiquidReactor]

get spdtool and program down your ram from 400 to something else like maybe 266 or 333 (1:1 or 4:5)

make sure to backup the original spd

lol, should've checked back here sooner but I already got new ram installed. Right now testing 3.0 (333fsb) with this G Skill ram kit, ram is running at 500 (1000 effective DDR2). I was going to get that ram kit for my next build anyway so nothing lost there yet.

Thanks for the suggestion though, I tried to max fsb rightaway and pc froze when I tried to set 350fsb so Im guessing either the ram or the cpu didn't get enough voltage so I will try that later.

[I(illa Bee]

Hello, I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I wanted to add to it. My machine, XPS 420, x38, e8400, 4gb DDR2800, PSU is a dell t400 525watt PSU not the stock unit..

-RMClock, Disabled the C1E enhanced halt option stoped the CPU form speed stepping down at at all. So stock my chip stays at 3.0Ghz and the voltage stays at 1.225. Made for a nice stable overclocking environment.

-setFSB, I have gotten the machine stable @ a 380 FSB, for 3.42Ghz...

not bad for a dell.

I wanted to let everyone know my cooling mod, I got a entire Dell XPS720 heat-sink assembly form ebay for $20, it came with te 6 pipe sink, the shroud branded XPS and the 120mm PWN fan.

I removed the Heatsink, its uses the same mounting systems as the XPS 420 (and every other full size BTX case since the 9100), in order to make it fit in the stock XPS420 shroud it had to drill out holes for the top of the pipes..



Why did I use this heatsink over the XPS420 heat pipe cooler also for sale on ebay? Easy, this one is much bigger and happened to be cheaper at the time...


my CPU at 3.4 sits at 41c

NEXT on my list:
2x 2gb sticks of faster rated DDR3 ram
Motherboard volt mod for more memory voltage
q6600 pin moded to 1333fsb, and soft overclock form there..
and a better GPU later on, im shopping for a 8800GTS g92, for under $100 I think...

[politbureau]

Great to see this thread *somewhat* alive. Not that Dell's really classify as "Xtreme" per se, but there is some sense of accomplishment in achieving what was never thought possible.

As an addendum to this thread, and in hopes that other owners will find it while randomly googling, I'll add my experience and some interesting observations which some may find helpful.

Some basic points I have found out about the XPS 420/430 series in my meanderings:
- both share the exact same motherboard layout, and are interchangeable *
- as such, so are all of the bits and bobs from the cases, including HS
- as Bee pointed out, yes, the 720 heatsink fits with minor modification to the plastic shroud. The 720 HS is a 6-pipe design, compared to 4 on the 420/430
- PSUs on both are standard ATX, however longer or modular PSUs won't catch on the PSU retention hook behind the PSU. This is not an issue as it will just push out of the way.
- The Dell PSU is also taller than a standard ATX, so a replacement will leave a small 1/2" gap on the back panel (below the PSU) once installed. Screw holes otherwise line up perfectly. I replaced the stock unit with an OCZ ModXstream Pro 600W, and everything works great
- Dual slot video cards fit fine, and there its lots enough room for even the longest cards. I have run a 9800GX2, GTX 280/285, and currently a GTX295 in there without issues

* For those 420 owners thinking of 'upgrading' to the 430's DDR3 motherboard - don't. The performance does NOT improve. In fact unless you are very, very savvy and willing to spend a fair bit of time and money on SPD programmable DDR3-1600, the performance will actually decrease. I was able to do side by side testing of a 420 and 430 (at a LAN party), with a mate also running a bsel modded Q6600 G0 and 4GB of aftermarket DDR3-1333. Comparing superpi times and everest scores, my DDR2-1200 running at 800MHz schooled his DDR3 at 1066MHz by a wide margin. Latency was particularly worse on the DDR3. Now - if you could reprogram some DDR3-1600 (that runs at 1.5v - unlikely) to run at the proper timings (as I did below with DDR2-1200) then you could *conceivably* run a non-bsel modded Q6600 G0 at ~3500 (my max overclock) and have DDR3 running at an impressive 1558MHz. But it would take some doing and a lot of dough :/


The PLL on this board is the aforementioned CV184-2APAG, and is supported now by both SetFSB (2.2.198.94+) and CPU cool. CPU cool hogs more resources and installs a windows service, so should generally not be used.

Overclocking using either program will require that the system be removed from power for a few moments after a full power down (not a restart) in order to clear the PLL state and allow it to POST.

The motherboard overvolts above vid by approximately 0.11v - for "stability," I imagine My Q6600 G0 has a vid of 1.1625v, and all monitoring programs report a voltage of 1.2750v in Windows - a difference of 0.1125v. On the plus side, there does not appear to be any droop whatsoever

NB: Actual VID will not be reported correctly by coretemp and the like - it seems the motherboard somehow blocks this reading, and these programs simply report the current voltage as VID. I had to put my G0 in another motherboard to get the actual value.

C1E and throttling can (and if overclocking, should) be turned off using RMclock, aiding in higher overclocks, but there is the potential for shortening processor life and it will of course run a bit hotter.

The Q6600 and most other C2D CPUs can be bsel (pin/pad) modded for a quick overclock that is, in most cases, completely stable. For the Q6600, the single pad tape mod worked perfectly for me. For 99% of people, I think this is the best solution, as a higher overclock will generally require a lot more effort and expenditure.

Better cooling can be achieved by replacing the stock cooler with that from an XPS 720 (~$20 on ebay) and/or lapping the stock heatsink and improving the mounting. Because Dell uses the odd plastic hinge method for securing the heatsink, I originally posited that mounting pressure was not as ideal as it could be. From stock, I added two layers of tin foil to the motherboard hinges to increase pressure on the socket, and then lapped the heatsink to a mirror. Here's how idle temp improved with each mod:

Ambient 22°C

Stock HSF, Q6600 @ 3.0GHz (Bsel) 31°C
Stock HSF, tin foil mod added 30°C
Stock HSF, lapped HS + tin foil 28°C
XPS 720 HS, lapped + tin foil 26°C

Not bad. 4°C above ambient in the end. Load temps also improved, but I didn't make a note of them at each point, so I can only say that it now loads up at around 52°C max in Orthos with the processor at 3.0.

My Overclocking experience

There are 2 things to consider when aiming for an overclock on the XPS (or any locked OEM, I imagine).

1. Your max overclock is limited by the non-adjustable voltage of the CPU and RAM.
2. Your max overclock is also limited by the maximum capability of the CPU/RAM - ie the max it is rated/capable of.

So my goal going into this, was to try and match the max speed of the processor at 1.27v with the RAM running as fast as possible.

I started by borrowing some DDR2-1066 RAM from a mate, to test the max overclock of the CPU. After some trial and error and many reboots, this turned out to be a staggering 3520MHz, much higher than I imagined it would have been. At this speed, with the CPU bsel modded, the 1066 RAM was running at 940MHz.

So I had two options. Buy some 1066 ram of my own, run it at 940MHz and maybe try and tighten up the timings - or remove the bsel mod, in which case at 391MHz FSB, the RAM would be running at 1176MHz. In this case I'd be looking for some DDR2-1200 to run very close to it's max speed.

The latter obviously seems the better solution, but there's a catch. Most enthusiast DDR2 rated above 800MHz actually specifies a voltage requirement of greater than 1.8v (the DDR2 spec). The problem is that the Dell (working on assumption here) only provides the spec voltage, which is 1.8v. So I had to find some RAM that ran at 1200MHz that only needed 1.8v.

Bear this voltage requirement in mind when upgrading your RAM, and especially when attempting to overclock. A lot of DDR2-1066 RAM specs 2.1v and up as required to reach these speeds. Be warned!

After some searching, along comes OCZ with some 2x2GB Platinum DDR2-1200 that only needs 1.8v (OCZ2P1200LV4GK). I even managed to find it on sale locally (in Ontario) for $75 after MIR, and bought 8GB.

I also specifically chose OCZ because of the ability to reprogram the SPD using SPD-Z - which I figured would be necessary, since the Dell mobo would likely pull the timings for the RAM from the DDR2-800 SPD table, which would likely be too aggressive for 1200MHz operation. As it turns out, I was right and it tried to program 4-4-4-12 instead of 5-5-5-18, so a little fudging and finger crossing and everything worked out perfectly.

So long story short, with a bit of luck, I was able to manage a respectable overclock of 391 x 9 = 3520MHz (no bsel), RAM 2/3 divider, 1176MHz 5-5-5-15 2T.

Vantage Performance Score with a GTX 280 @ 729/1458/1260 and Q6600 G0 @ 3200MHz = P173xx.

Hope this proves helpful to some XPS owners out there!

Cheers

[politbureau]

Second update that I thought might help some of the more "hardcore" XPS overclockers out there

If you are *really* keen to OC your 420/430, you can also bsel volt mod your C2D CPU as well...

Check out this spreadsheet: http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?ac...post&id=316332

This works for *every* C2D out there - just be sure to set your actual VID before making the mod, and please, please use a proper conductive pen, not tinfoil... They are only $5 at most electronics stores.

Below is a list of 1.8V OCZ DDR2 that you can use in the 420 without any modifications. OCZ memory is also ideal since you can use SPD-Z to adjust the timings to match whatever memory speed you are running (or milk better performance out of your modules).

All these modules feature 5-5-5-18 timings and 1.8v operation. There is no real difference between the Blade and Platinum series (so far as I have read). Pick the modules which give you the most headroom for your application and/or bsel selection. The 1150s tend to be the best in terms of price/performance.

OCZ Platinum Series

DDR2-1066 - OCZ2P1066LV4GK
DDR2-1150 - OCZ2P1150LV4GK
DDR2-1200 - OCZ2P1200LV4GK

OCZ Blade Series

DDR2-1066 - OCZ2B1066LV4GK
DDR2-1150 - OCZ2B1150LV4GK
DDR2-1200 - OCZ2B1200LV4GK

This is a simple chart of FSB and RAM/DDR speeds for both stock/bsel and various speeds. I've shown the speed of the Q6600 for reference, but this chart will also work for any 9x multilpier CPU.

Q6600Speeds.jpg

Cheers

[jmsandrsn]

Here's another simple mod you can do to the XPS 420/430 to lower the temps about 5C. Simply mount a temp controlled fan on the back side of the heatsink mounting shroud to pull hot air away from the heatsink: http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...InsideFan2.jpg Click here to see system details: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=200382793507

[jmsandrsn]

Also, I only overclock the XPS 420/430 using the BSEL mod. I thought the XPS 430 would be great since it uses the X48 chipset which support 1600FSB However, Dell does not offer any 1600FSB CPU's with this system so this means that they did not optimize the BIOS to work at 1600FSB. I have gone through about 8 different XPS 430 systems and 2 of them were able to run at 1600FSB without problems but the other ones were not up to the challenge. The northbridge on the 2 systems that ran 1600FSB without a problem must have been better silicon than than the other ones.

[dance]

hi when ever i overclock my xps 420 Q9400 cpu using setfsb the games i play always run faster as the speed is not proportional. is there another way i can overclock without using the pin mod or setfsb.
i just want to overclock from 2.66 to 3.00 to not bottleneck my gfx card thx

[jmsandrsn]

The pin mod won't work since the CPU is already running at 1333 FSB and that's the highest official FSB that is supported. I've never tried setfsb since I only overclock the XPS 420/430 with the pin mod. You could consider replacing your Q9400 with a Q6600 and doing the pin mod to 3.0GHz.

[dance]

buying a new Q6600 to replace my Q9400 is a downgrade and expensive...
so im guessing the only way i will be able to overclock is buying a new computer? if i buy a new cpu will i be able to overclock via bios? or is that always locked on xps 420 systems

[I(illa Bee]

ok, so im diggin this thread back up..

Current machine im working with. XPS 420, q6600, 1333fsb mod, Set FSB mod from there.

3.5Ghz is my best doings.

Can someone give me more info getting my memory up to par. right now its running
5:6 6-6-16 2t...

[wakeboardr116]

Sorry to bring up an old thread. I just picked up an xps 430 and I've got a Q9400 2.66Ghz 1333fsb with 8GB ddr3 PC3-10700.

With setFSB i've been able to get it the FSB to 350 which puts the processor at 2.8Ghz but anything above that the ram becomes unstable and BSOD's. The ram is at 1:2 FSB ratio with 9 9 9 24 2T timing. Is there any way I can adjust my ram to allow it to go higher? I downloaded SPDtool but have no clue how to use it.

Any help would be appreciated.

[wakeboardr116]

Can anyone help me out?

[wakeboardr116]

Anyone?